Should communities allow hunting on land that they may come to own?

Ken Moon

As devolved nations begin to make progress on empowering communities to own land once again, should these communities be open to the idea of allowing hunting on land they own?

While this might seem like a straightforward question with a simple yes or no answer, it is also loaded with a plethora of cultural, historical, social justice, animal rights, and biodiversity implications.

The recent release of the film ‘Wilding’ tells the story of the rewilding of the Knepp Estate in Sussex. But two things that this story did not touch upon are how the family came to own the land in the first place, and the role that hunting has played in both its creation and its current management.

Historical records for the estate go back to the 12th century when Knepp castle was used as a hunting lodge at the heart of a thousand-acre ‘deer park’. The Normans created deer parks by taking large areas of common land and placing them under ‘forest law’ forbidding hunting, harvesting, or foraging, etc by commoners.

Six centuries later Knepp manor was purchased by Sir Charles Raymond and has descended through the Burrell family ever since. Over the centuries the land was broken up for agricultural use, but the historical ties with the tradition of an exclusive right to hunt have been maintained. Controversially.

Years gone by

Hunting for subsistence is a far more ancient and equitable right of land access. Under Ango-Saxon law & the laws of Hywel Dda commoners held rights in common, including the right to hunt wild animals on common land to feed and clothe both their families, and their communities. And to live sustainably.

These rights have been fought over through hundreds of years of enclosures to the present day. Our current laws around who can hunt what and where are the product of this long history of the struggle between a shared right to subsist in and from the landscape, and the right to hunt at the exclusion of all others.

With poverty alleviation being a core founding purpose of many community organisations, and social justice being a strong founding principle, then should community land organisations allow, even if only in principle, members of their communities to hunt on land they secure, so that they may subsist?

Or, with the nature and biodiversity crises being so pressing, would a permission to hunt, even to stave off hunger, place an intolerable strain on our already depleted wildlife? If so, then where does that leave activities such as foraging, harvesting, gleaning & panning?

These are the kinds of questions and responsibilities that our communities once successfully managed as commoners. And they may well be the kinds of questions that we’ll need to get used to managing again, as more and more communities look towards securing land for community use.